by Lucy E. Zahnle

Created on: September 06, 2009   Last Updated: September 29, 2009

On the Death of My Father

My parents were deeply in love and that love never dwindled or ceased to be as some loves do, but increased to such a degree that, at times, it seemed as if all the world was forgotten in their obsession with each other. Because Papa was full-blooded Ute and Mama was white, both their families opposed the union. Their wedding did nothing to bring the races together. Indeed, it strengthened the hatred so much that my parents were disowned on their wedding day. Still, they were happy. They had each other.

Within a year of the wedding, Annie, my older sister, was born. Petite and elf-like, she was almost a mirror image of Mama, with the same tumbling red-gold curls, petal-soft, ivory skin, and laughing violet eyes.

I soon followed. A female version of my father with his smooth ebony tresses, brown eyes, and copper skin, I was the more adventurous child, eager, despite my skirts, to learn the rough, arduous pursuits of the cowboys on our Colorado horse ranch.

In my sixteenth year, the autumn came on wet. Rain and wind slammed against the stables and the ranch house, blasting its way through crevices in the rough-hewn timbers to bathe the rooms in cold and dampness. Mama coughed and sneezed, but laughed and made light of it.

One night, during an extremely nasty storm, lightning struck the big barn and it caught fire. We all rushed out to save the animals, returning to the house hours later, drenched and exhausted. When Mama collapsed, we realized she was burning up with fever. In a week, she was dead and we buried her with all honors in her best Sunday dress, her wedding ring still shimmering on her finger.

Papa was never the same. He spent his days staring out the sitting room window, his eyes vacant and his hands clenched, as autumn turned into winter and winter into spring. Some days, desperate to forget, he drank, but the liquor only seemed to sharpen his tortured memories. When he saw Annie, looking so much like Mama, his wistful eyes would follow her, half hoping. Sometimes he convinced himself that she was Mama and reached out for her, calling Mama's name. Gently rebuffing him, Annie would speak as if to a young child. "No, Papa! Mama... Margaret... has gone to heaven. I'm Annie, your daughter." Papa would slump back into his chair, bewildered and hurt. When sober, he burst into tears upon seeing Annie.

Sometimes when he woke up at night and Mama wasn't beside him, he would dash through the house, screaming her name, his ragged,

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